Researchers explore way to detect brain injury in NFL players

MONDAY, Nov. 28, 2016 -- Researchers say
they've discovered a new way to detect and track brain injury related to
repeated concussions in National Football League (NFL) players.

Brain imaging scans in 14 current or former
NFL players revealed elevated levels of a protein related to the body's
immune response for brain injury, said lead researcher Dr. Jennifer
Coughlin. She is an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral
sciences with Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

The NFL players, who had gone an average of
seven years since their last self-reported concussion, showed high
levels of the protein in eight of 12 brain regions examined, Coughlin
said.

If this new test is proven to work, it could
provide a cornerstone for tracking the effects of repeated concussions
on the human brain, Coughlin and her colleagues concluded.

"We anticipate this technology is going to be
useful in studying younger players and very carefully tracking how many
concussions they've had related to play, and how that relates to the
signal of brain injury revealed in our scans," she said.

Repeated concussions have been linked to
memory loss and mood disorders in NFL players. Autopsies have revealed
extensive brain damage in dozens of deceased former players, many of
whom exhibited erratic behavior prior to their deaths. The condition is
known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

In the early days of research, autopsy was the
only way to verify brain damage, Coughlin said. More recently,
researchers have tried to track changes in the white matter of living
players using a technology that estimates water movement in brain
tissue.

Coughlin and her colleagues instead used
positron emission tomography (PET) scans to track changes in a specific
protein that regularly exists in low levels in the brain, but increases
when the brain's immune cells respond to injury.

PET scans were done on 14 NFL players and 16
non-players from a matched "control" group to detect differences in
protein levels between the two groups.

Although the study isn't definitive, the scans
revealed higher levels of the protein in the brains of NFL players,
suggesting ongoing inflammation in response to injury, Coughlin said.

However, the scans revealed limited white
matter changes in NFL players' brains compared to the non-players, and
the athletes performed the same as the control group on
neuropsychological tests, the researchers said.

"We are seeing this signal from this protein
related to brain injury and repair in young players who do not yet have
memory deficits," said Coughlin. She added that, in the future, these
scans "could conceivably be used to see who is primed for future
neuropsychiatric problems."

On top of detecting and tracking potential
brain injury, the scans also could be used to test future treatments to
help players dealing with the effects of repeated concussions, Coughlin
said.

Jonathan Godbout is an associate professor of
neuroscience with Ohio State University's Center for Brain and Spinal
Cord Repair. He said, if verified as accurate, these scans will be
useful far beyond sports-related concussions.

The scans also could track brain injury
related to trauma from car crashes, for example, and possibly even
damage occurring in a pre-Alzheimer's disease patient, Godbout said.

The immune protein being tracked by the scan
"has been implicated in a whole myriad of neurological diseases,"
Godbout said. "The thought that you can detect them in humans, and
detect them relatively early, is important."

The findings were published in the Nov. 28 online edition of JAMA Neurology.